


The Belly of the Beast

by linguamortua



Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bad Decisions, Dirty Talk, First Time, M/M, Military, Sex in a tank, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:29:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: Norman had supposed that he understood the way Travis had looked at him since the first day. The way that men had looked at him before. He could see in the mirror his smooth face and his bowed top lip, girlish. Although he would have handed over a year's pay to trade places with a man with a strong jaw and a beard, Norman vaguely understood that he could have power, too, if he wanted it and if he knew how to grasp it. The kind of power that a pretty girl has. Travis thought he was a pretty girl. That was it. And in some unformed way Norman had known what Travis was about just as soon as Bible and Gordo had headed off to the mess tent, and Travis had leaned over and said, ‘Hey. Hey. I wanna show you something.’





	The Belly of the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a day and I have absolutely no excuse for it.

Norman took a deep breath and dropped down the hatch into Fury. It was dark inside her and everything smelled like blood and sweat. Norman was coming to get used to it. He watched Travis swing his big body easily into the nook where he liked to lounge. Shells at his head and the gas tank at his feet. Stretching out a cold hand, Norman fumbled for the hatch cover and pulled it down with a clang. With only two of them inside her, Fury felt half-empty. 

‘C’mere,’ said Travis, as always mumbling like he had a mouthful of grits. He snapped his fingers as if calling over a stray dog. ‘C’mere, boy.’ God help him, Norman came over. No room to stand. He crouched next to Travis. It had only been a week, and although Norman had now killed a man—killed more than one man—and buried the dead, and slept in his seat, and dodged incoming fire, still he was a little scared of Travis. When Bible was around, Travis was tractable enough, and Collier could keep him in line. But now Norman was trapped inside with him, with nobody to yank on Travis' leash. Yeah, Norman was scared. Scared of Travis' mean tongue and his big hands and his vicious grin, lips curling back like a pitbull. Scared of the power in his shoulders and the emptiness behind his eyes when he killed. On his first day in typing school, Norman had practically struggled to lift his typewriter off the top shelf.

Travis whipped out a hand and grabbed Norman by the front of his shirt. Norman sucked in a breath as Travis pulled him into the cramped space between wall and turret. He fell awkwardly, striking his forehead a glancing blow against the strip of leather along the tank wall. It was there for that purpose, but it still hurt. 

Time slowed for a moment, his brain made sluggish by the blow to the head. Norman had supposed that he understood the way Travis had looked at him since the first day. The way that men had looked at him before. He could see in the mirror his smooth face and his bowed top lip, girlish. Although he would have handed over a year's pay to trade places with a man with a strong jaw and a beard, Norman vaguely understood that he could have power, too, if he wanted it and if he knew how to grasp it. The kind of power that a pretty girl has. Travis thought he was a pretty girl. That was it. And in some unformed way Norman had known what Travis was about just as soon as Bible and Gordo had headed off to the mess tent, and Travis had leaned over and said, ‘Hey. Hey. I wanna show you something.’ 

‘What are you doing?’ Norman said, as Travis manhandled him so that he was lying on top of the loader, face inches away from the metal ceiling above him. He was lying on Travis like a mattress, he thought. A lumpy, noisy mattress.

‘Told you I was gonna show you something,’ Travis said. Norman’s throat felt thick and useless. He wanted to hear Travis say it; to confirm all the long-held suspicions that Norman had had about other men, generally, and about the crew of Fury specifically. He was not blind or innocent, after all. 

So he swallowed hard, and said, ‘Show me what?’ Travis made the deep gurgling noise that passed for laughter. Norman’s hackles rose. The howl of wolves might be less threatening. Blood and sweat, he thought, smelling it, tasting it. Blood and sweat and Travis' paw fumbling at his belt. Travis unbuttoned him one-handed, just so he had enough space to jam his hand down the back of Norman’s pants. ‘Christ,’ Norman said, his voice high.

‘Bible ain’t here, so you don’t gotta bother with _that_ ,’ Travis said, amused. He was breathing hard through his mouth and moving around beneath Norman. What Norman had thought was his belt buckle was his cock, hard already. Then with a lurch and a rustle of wool and canvas, Travis got himself skin to skin against Norman’s bare ass. Only a little. Still there was the rough scrape of buttons and belt loops. Norman would never be warm, never be comfortable again, he thought. Less than a month at the front and everything was cold and wet and riddled with lice. He didn’t smoke and he hadn’t had anything that tasted good in all that time. Not a letter from home. Nothing was good here. Travis' skin was warm, though. Norman clung to that. He swallowed again and wondered, if he let Travis do this, if that meant that he was solid. Maybe that was how you made it.

‘Show me what?’ Norman said again, stupidly. That wasn’t what he wanted to ask. What he wanted to ask was _are you going to fuck me?_ and perhaps also _how?_ And maybe _will it hurt?_ , and _why me?_

‘You _know_ what.’ Travis made a humping gesture with his hips and Norman’s face almost hit the sidewall. ‘Brace yourself, dumbass.’ He kicked at Norman’s heel until Norman got the message and wedged the sole of his left boot against the wall and his right boot on the floor. He pressed his left hand to the floor. It felt strange to lean all his weight on Travis. Helpless. He didn’t know what to do with his other hand. Travis' seemed to be everywhere, first messing with Norman’s clothes and then squeezing a handful of his ass. Once, Norman had taken a girl to a variety show, and afterwards she had let him kiss her and rub up on her leg a little bit. After a minute she had pushed him away and straightened her dress and pretended to be shocked. Travis was doing that right now. He was rubbing off against the back of Norman’s thigh. Half of Norman hoped that he’d finish up like that. The other half—the half that had watched the gunner from the Matador bend a German girl over with her dress up to her waist and fuck her in a burnt-out house—waited, tremulous, rapt. 

‘Come on,’ Norman said shakily. He touched one hand to his crotch, over his pants. He wasn’t all the way hard but his blood was pumping. If he was at home in bed, he’d be thinking about beating off. 

‘Come on, what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Norman, although he did.

‘Shit,’ said Travis. ‘You actin’ like a slut and you don’t hardly know what for.’ He rattled around in his kit beside himself, and Norman heard something small and metal roll away and fall down behind Gordo’s seat. The pressure of Travis' hand came back, but slick this time.

‘What was that?’

‘You’re talkin’ like a virgin,’ said Travis, sounding as if he liked it. 

‘I’m not,’ Norman said. ‘A virgin, I mean.’ That was only half a lie. He’d fooled around with girls back home.

‘Think you are, boy,’ said Travis. Norman was about to protest again. Then he thought about pretty girls.

‘D’you wish I was?’ he asked. Travis' breath caught.

‘Shit, I don’t need to wish.’ Norman tried to turn and look over his shoulder so that he could see what Travis looked like right now. It was hard to see all of him, and Travis roughly shoved at his face after a moment to push him back into line. But now Norman knew that Travis was red-faced and sweating already, with his mouth open like an animal. Pretty girls and power, Norman thought. Travis always wanted Bible to pay attention to him. He always wanted to elbow in on a joke, or fish for a cigarette. Or wrestle with the loaders from the other tank crews, and win. He liked conquest. ‘Anyway it’s only some grease,’ Travis said finally, reluctantly, like he’d rather Norman squirmed.

‘Are you gonna hurt me?’ he asked. Travis groaned.

‘You want that?’ he asked. His thick fingers were up between Norman’s ass cheeks and he squeezed Norman’s hip a little too hard with the other hand. 

‘No,’ said Norman, honestly.

‘Don’t be a bitch,’ said Travis. ‘C’mon. Don’t be a little bitch, hey? Hey?’ He shook Norman.

‘Fine.’ Norman closed his eyes. This was the closest he’d been to someone for a while. Travis was mean, but he was seeing Norman. He was really seeing him. Not his name on a list or a nametag; not as one more warm body, or an outstretched bowl in the mess hall.

‘Hurts a little,’ said Travis. ‘“S just how it is.’ His whole arm shifted angles and Norman tensed up as one thick finger pressed at his asshole. 

‘Travis,’ Norman said suddenly, grabbing blindly downwards in panic and getting only a handful of Travis' wool pants, with something in the pocket. Travis ignored him. His finger slid in, a long, tight drag. It didn’t hurt but it didn’t feel like nothing, either. Norman swallowed his words. It was all the way in him. He was holding his breath. It was easier when Travis pulled it back out and did it again; good, somehow, although Norman couldn’t say how. He was suddenly desperately glad that Travis couldn’t see his face. 

This wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to Norman. It wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to him this week. He had thought he’d known all the worst things that could happen to a person, but it turned out that there was always worse. So instead of doing what a regular guy back home would do, and shoving away the perv who was messing with him, Norman just closed his eyes and let Travis do it to him. Travis untangled his hand and reached out again, and now Norman knew that he was greasing his fingers with machine oil. There was movement and Travis cussing under his breath, and then Travis rubbed his rough fingertips up on Norman’s asshole, and a little bit into up it. 

The angle changed. He could feel Travis' knuckles, a smooth pressure. And then, hard-soft and blunt—Christ, Travis' prick. Norman moaned through his teeth, body tense, horrified. A regular guy would push him off and sock him in the mouth. A regular guy wouldn’t have followed him. Wouldn’t have fallen for _I just wanna show you something_. Travis grabbed him across the belly with one hand and pulled him down.

It hurt. Norman screwed his eyes closed tighter. His fingers were gripping at the plate metal floor. He felt like he might tear. Travis adjusted and tried again. Norman felt his body give, stretch. 

‘Travis,’ he said again. This time, Travis grunted.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ he said.

‘Travis, Jesus. Go slow, just go slow.’ Travis pulled at Norman’s ass cheek with one hand, opening him up. In response, Norman found himself shifting his feet, spreading himself wider. ‘Jesus,’ he repeated. ‘It hurts.’

‘It don’t hurt me none,’ said Travis. He gripped Norman tighter, impaling him until Norman made a keening noise through his teeth. Norman was huffing out breaths through his nose like they were going back into combat. His right hand was on Travis' thigh, trying to slow him down, to push himself back up. Then suddenly Travis stopped. ‘Touch your cock,’ he ordered. 

‘What?’

‘I said touch your fucking cock, you don’t listen to shit.’ He said it in the exact tone of voice that he used when Norman was slow to reload, or handed him the wrong tool, or didn’t make the coffee strong enough. Norman moved his hand to his dick. He didn’t know how he was going to get hard again. Even when he wasn’t moving, Travis' cock was a monstrous, stinging intrusion. He tried, anyway, like he was alone. The sound of his hand on his dick was all he could hear. He knew Travis could hear it too.

After a minute, Travis started moving again. He pushed a little deeper. It wasn’t a lot better, but it wasn’t any worse. Travis could make it worse. He could’ve put Norman facedown on the floor and fucked him like Indy fucking the German girl - like he’d paid for Norman with a pack of cigarettes and could have him any way he wanted. Travis probably knew a hundred ways to do it. 

‘Did you do this to the last guy?’ 

‘Naw.’ Travis pulled out a bit, and Norman almost sighed with relief. Just like with his fingers, it was easier when he put it back in. Norman found that he could only think about what Travis was doing in the vaguest of terms. When he thought around it, it was better. He could breathe. Then Travis ruined it. ‘You ever fuck a girl, Ellison?’

‘Not—not all the way.’

‘You didn’t fuck her or you couldn’t get it all the way in?’ Travis ran all the words together so Norman could hardly understand him. It took him a while to puzzle out the sentence.

‘I didn’t.’

‘You fuck her mouth?’

‘Jesus, no. What kind of girl—’ 

‘Any of ‘em.’ Travis was going in and out, just a little. He couldn’t get it all the way in. Norman wondered if it was like that with men. If there wasn’t room. ‘If you ask ‘em nice.’

Norman could imagine Travis doing anything nice.

‘Like you asked me?’

‘Yeah?’ said Travis, delighted. ‘Yeah? You’ll suck my dick if I ask you nice? Start treatin’ you like a girl?’ He moved his feet and sat up a little. Norman’s breath caught hysterically; it started up hurting again whenever he tensed. Travis felt it. ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Like you’re takin’ a dump.’

Norman’s face felt hot. Every time Travis started up with his vulgar talk, which was every day, Norman got embarrassed. He tried it, though—anything to make this easier—and bore down. He gripped his dick, half-hard. Travis slid into him more. Norman tipped his head back and rested it on Travis' shoulder. Travis didn’t shove him away.

‘Is that it?’ he said, hopeful. ‘All of it?’

‘You want all of it?’ Travis' voice was thick. 

‘I was just—’

‘Naw, tell me.’ Travis said. He was moving smooth, hitting his stride. Just when Norman had thought it was going to be unbearable, he felt a slow heat in him. ‘C’mon. Tell me you want all of it, boy.’ Norman didn’t have the words. He didn’t say anything at all. He just slowly rubbed at himself while Travis moved inside him. ‘C’mon,’ Travis urged. ‘You ain’t foolin’ me. Say it. Say _Grady, I want all your cock._ ’

‘Oh my God,’ said Norman, his own prick jumping to life in his hand. Something came undone inside him. He was slack-mouthed and his ass was slack and easy, too. Now it didn’t hardly hurt at all, and instead the way Travis' dick moved just felt like another way of jerking off. It wasn’t even a lie to say it. ‘Grady,’ he said, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth. What kind of a name was Grady? ‘I want all your cock.’ Travis fucked into him hard. ‘Jesus, I want it.’

Travis was fucking him hard and steady, and Norman jolted on top of him like Fury was going over a muddy field. He figured out the trick of pulling himself off in time to Travis' thrusts. His breath was whining out of him. Under him, Travis was mumbling unintelligibly. Norman didn’t have to understand the words. He felt the same. 

_This is real_ , he told himself with every drag and thrust. It was more real than the plane to Europe. It was more real than shooting the German. It was more real than anything. He felt like a real person, fucking a real person. Travis' hands and breath and sharp, sweaty smell were all real.

‘C’mon,’ said Travis, and then, ‘fuck, _fuck_.’ He made an agonised sound and rutted up into Norman, grinding his hips. All the way in, so that Norman felt full of him. He could feel Travis, somehow, on the inside of him. He was stretched so far that the ache meant nothing any more. 

‘God,’ he said, strangled. He knew that Travis would not be patient. His hand was over the end of his cock just the way he liked it, squeezing more than jerking. In his mind’s eye he had a whole motion picture of images that usually worked. He tried them all, but in the end what tipped him over the edge was the feeling of Travis' spent cock twitching, and his breath coming ragged and wet. 

He came into his fist, his ass clenching down and his teeth gritted. _Hey. I wanna show you something._ Norman shivered, over-stimulated.

The quiet afterwards was like the aftermath of battle. The same bone-deep tiredness, the same ringing in his ears. The heat, rapidly receding. They lay with their legs tangled together, Norman’s head resting half on Travis and half on the wall. Slowly, Travis shifted his hips and pulled out. 

‘Got a rag?’ Norman asked, looking around. He was sticky, holding his pants out the way of the mess.

‘Nah,’ Travis lied, grabbing one from his kit and cleaning himself up. 

‘Asshole,’ muttered Norman. He should’ve known better than to cuss at Travis. In retaliation, Travis groped back down Norman’s underwear, fingers pressing back into him. Norman was raw and loose there, and he tried to twist away. 

‘Don’t be like that,’ Travis said. He held Norman down with an arm across his chest. ‘Be sweet, c’mon.’ He brought his hand up. Norman could smell the spunk on it. His face was hot, thinking about how it had run out of him and over Travis' fingers. How Travis had felt Norman was slack and wet like a pussy. Travis clamped his hand over Norman’s nose and mouth without warning and Norman thrashed, keeping his mouth shut. Against the back of his neck he could feel the damp huff of Travis' breath. He tried to pull away. He needed to breathe. So he opened his mouth. Travis immediately stuck two of his fingers in there.

‘Fuck you,’ said Norman around them, hating it, hating that his whole body was warm and good. Hating that Travis had done that to him. Travis' palm was slippery against his chin. His hand tasted like spunk and salt and machine grease. Norman knew with total clarity that within days, maybe within hours, he would want Travis again. 

‘Suck ‘em,’ Travis said. ‘I wanna know if you can.’ He shoved his face up by Norman’s ear and crooned at him like he was wooing a girl in a movie theater. Norman finally wriggled free, landing on the metal floor with his ass out. Travis whooped and slapped it.

‘You’re a son of a bitch,’ said Norman, pulling up his pants and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

‘Good news for you, son,’ said Travis. He was lying there with his dick out and his feet up on the wall, crossed at the ankle. Norman couldn’t help looking. ‘You want this again? No cussin’ at me. You be a good boy.’ He put himself away, and then rearranged himself into his usual slouch. He closed his eyes. ‘Fuck off outta here.’

Norman’s arm shook from the effort of lifting the hatch. All he wanted was to wash up and sleep. As his head popped out into the fading afternoon light, he saw to his horror that everyone was there. Or- not everyone, but the rest of the crew. Bible, reading the good book as always, turned primly away as he saw Norman, his mouth in a thin tight line under his mustache. Gordo nodded with studied blandness. And Collier. Lounging up against the turret, long legs hanging down the glacis. He was suffused with amusement. Norman felt himself flushing horribly. Amusement was worse than the alternative. A punishment would have been easy to take, and would have increased his status. Instead, Collier looked at him indulgently. Belatedly, Norman felt the wetness on the inside of his pants, and resisted the temptation to look down and see if it was visible. He would have to brazen it out. The wind was cold against his wet face. 

He nodded to Collier casually, and then flicked his gaze up to the sky as if assessing whether or not it was about to rain more. 

‘Coon-Ass showin’ you the ropes, son?’

‘Showing him _something_ ,’ said Gordo knowingly.

‘Leading him into sin,’ said Bible, without looking up. His shoulders were tight and his posture rigidly straight. He didn’t look at Norman. If it was anyone else, Norman would have said Bible was mad. Mad like jealous. But Bible was always going on about sin, and how he was saved, so Norman guessed he was just sore about something else. 

‘Leave him alone, Bible,’ said Collier, lying back and closing his eyes. ‘Let the kid have fun while he’s still alive.’

‘Hey, we’re alive too,’ Gordo reminded him, and everyone but Norman laughed.

‘For now,’ said Collier. And then, without looking, to Norman. ‘Kid, go hit the showers.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Norman and made his escape, limping only slightly, appalled, ashamed, elated.


End file.
